Archive for Week 11 Discussions

Political speech can be expressed in many different ways. The most common way I can think of is through speeches. Political candidates express their viewpoints, opinions, and plans for their position during these speeches and can attract large audiences to get their message out. They also can do a lot with their organizers sending out mass emails to everyone that signed up to receive their messages. Also, Facebook pages and websites are good places to find their stances. I volunteered extensively with the Obama campaign since the beginning of the year, and as a volunteer we did a lot of canvassing and phonebanking. Canvassing is basically going door to door and asking people if they were registered to vote, who they happened to be voting for, etc…phonebanking is calling people and basically doing the same thing, but with a slightly different “script”. It was an extremely efficient way to get out the vote to college students on and near campus, and we may have convinced a few people to sway their opinions along the way.

How is political speech expressed in social media? Provide some examples that you have seen, or been involved in.

Kristin Marquardt

Political speech is expressed in four of the six ways. First, is face to face. When campaigning, there are literal political speeches where the candidate will speak face to face with an audience, and might even talk to people individually afterward. Also, interviews are face to face.The second way is telephone. Political people are always calling to ask for donations to the campaign, promoting a certain person, and performing polls on your political opinion. The third way is email. I can’t even count the number of emails I’ve received from President Obama before the election. People running the campaign send out emails like crazy. The fourth way is personally addressed documents. My dad has received a Christmas card from the governor and a letter from Mitt Romney. Both are hanging on the fridge.